ide on how to optimize your Google Publisher Center account.

Google News is everywhere. The Google news tab or app, top stories carousels. How can you ensure that your content is consistently displayed on these surfaces?

There is no magic bullet to Google News SEO.

Your content can only be optimized to its fullest potential on Google News surfaces with a Google Publisher Center account.

This SEO advanced guide assumes that you already have a Publisher Center account. If not, don’t worry. Learn how to create your account correctly the first time.

We’ll dive into the details of how to configure Google Publisher Center so that your articles and videos are amplified on Google News surfaces.

Google Publisher Center Settings

Google’s Publisher Center is a project that clearly didn’t get the best UI designer.

Scroll down to the More options section at the bottom of the Publisher Center page to find the basic settings.

Click on the Modify publishing settings and Manage publication and organization.

Publication settings

Make sure the name of the publication is the brand name. It’s not “BrandName Blog”, or “BrandName Magazine.”

You can corroborate important facts about your brand when you create a magazine.

You can use this to help your brand’s entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph database, which is a database of things that are understood.

Google might have trouble connecting the two if you do not use the official name of the brand.

You can confirm the following facts:

• Geographic target with country
• The primary language of your audience.
• The parent company. If applicable, make sure your parent organization name is also used as its official brand name.
• The canonical domain is verified to have a primary URL, and has relationships with syndication partners for additional URLs.
• Visual brand identity using logos. Communication of the official logo, (upload the light and dark versions and use transparent backgrounds) as well as the square variant. Google’s “recommendations”, such as size and format, should be taken as instructions.

Fonts are purely a brand decision and will not affect your Knowledge Graph entity or the visibility across Google News surfaces.

Content labels

You will find Add Content Labels in the More options section.

Google offers five labels which can be applied to a site or section.

These are great for satirical or opinionated content. This will help Google classify content correctly and apply E.E.A.T indicators. If authenticated, these signals can give your website a boost in visibility.

This increased understanding could have the opposite effect on Google News when it comes to press releases, blogs, and user-generated content. If you’re methodical, test it. If not, I would avoid these labels.

Publisher Center also offers three additional products on top of the foundational settings:

• Google News publications
• Reader Revenue Manager.
• News Showcase

Google News Optimization

Google News publications are a formal submission of your content for Google News. Your choices during setup will have a significant impact on performance.

The following are some general guidelines:

The publication category is another way to enrich the Google Knowledge Graph.

If you want to increase visibility, it is best not to limit your distribution.

Sections

Google News App will display sections as tabs.

You should at least have two sections.

• One for articles.
• One for video

You are losing out on an important opportunity to reach your target audience if you do not publish in video format.

Show the entire scope of your content to achieve maximum visibility.

• Set up sections that correspond to your website’s parent categories. This will make it clear to Google and your readers what you are about.
• At least one of these sections should be tailored to local news for exclusive local placements.
• Add sections for topics which are trending and expected to last.
• Include a personalized feed section.

Drag and drop the sections into an optimal ordering once you’ve completed all of these sections.

The question to ask is whether you should use Feed or Web Location for article sections.

Feed is the best solution if you have resources for development. Why?

• You can choose which articles to include in a feed. You might want to exclude sponsored content or certain syndication partners. You can also manually delete an article from the Google Publisher Center section manager interface, or trigger a manual refresh.
• Google’s ranking determines the order in which articles appear on websites. You can control the order with a feed. You can display the latest, the most popular, or the ones that drive the most engagement at the top.
• Google will only index content that is on a web page. Googlebot fetches feed content approximately every 30 minutes – or instantly if you use Websub. Google News feeds are a great tool for crawling optimization.

Send the Google Technical Documentation to your developer. Be sure to validate the feed prior to submitting it to Google News.

Google News Followers

Google News has a feature that is often overlooked: the ability to allow your audience to subscribe to your publication.

Google does not currently provide an API that allows readers to follow publications directly on your site. A simple Google News button linked to the URL of your publication will increase the number of followers.

You can promote it through other marketing channels such as social media, email newsletters, push notifications, or CPC, if you really want to go all out with Google News.

This “news publication staring” increases the chances that your content will appear in personalized placements within Google News.

This can result in higher click-through rate, affecting the algorithm so that the content is shown to new readers.

The increased accessibility to your audience via Google Surfaces will create a more loyal following.

Optimize your Publisher Center account to boost your Google News visibility

Google News visibility depends on the correct setup of your Google Publisher Center.

Your articles and videos will have the best chance of success in the competitive world of content if you use the correct settings and build a solid following.

It also helps to establish your brand in the Google Knowledge Graph.

The first post A guide to optimizing Google Publisher Center appeared on Search Engine Land.